The School Survival Forums are permanently retired. If you need help with quitting school, unsupportive parents or anything else, there is a list of resources on the Help Page.

To everyone who joined these forums at some point, and got discouraged by the negativity and left after a while (or even got literally scared off): I'm sorry.

I wasn't good enough at encouraging people to be kinder, and removing people who refuse to be kind. Encouraging people is hard, and removing people creates conflict, and I hate conflict... so that's why I wasn't better at it.

I was a very, very sensitive teen. The atmosphere of this forum as it is now, if it had existed in 1996, would probably have upset me far more than it would have helped.

I can handle quite a lot of negativity and even abuse now, but that isn't the point. I want to help people. I want to help the people who need it the most, and I want to help people like the 1996 version of me.

I'm still figuring out the best way to do that, but as it is now, these forums are doing more harm than good, and I can't keep running them.

Thank you to the few people who have tried to understand my point of view so far. I really, really appreciate you guys. You are beautiful people.

Everyone else: If after everything I've said so far, you still don't understand my motivations, I think it's unlikely that you will. We're just too different. Maybe someday in the future it might make sense, but until then, there's no point in arguing about it. I don't have the time or the energy for arguing anymore. I will focus my time and energy on people who support me, and those who need help.

-SoulRiser

The forums are mostly read-only and are in a maintenance/testing phase, before being permanently archived. Please use this time to get the contact details of people you'd like to keep in touch with. Send me a message if you'd like to keep in touch with me & Steve.

Please do not make a mirror copy of the forums in their current state - things will still change, and some people have requested to be able to edit or delete some of their personal info.

Parents who send their kids to such schools are to blame. Unless homeschooling is outlawed, complaining about schools is not valid. Raise your own kids. If you dont have time because you have to work two or three jobs to make ends meat, organize your coworkers and strike for fair wages. Students can organize civil rebellion in the way of strikes and walkouts. Putting up with bullshit is why America is going down the tubes. If you believe yourself defeated or are too cowardly to confront the powers that keep you down, including your own, then surely nothing will get better.

Purity is to Believe only that which deserves it.Wisdom is to follow only the Opinion which makes the best use of evidence.Excellence is to be mindful of all these things in Living.Follow me on Twitter!

(07-29-2016 04:04 AM)the Analogist Wrote: Parents who send their kids to such schools are to blame. Unless homeschooling is outlawed, complaining about schools is not valid. Raise your own kids. If you dont have time because you have to work two or three jobs to make ends meat, organize your coworkers and strike for fair wages. Students can organize civil rebellion in the way of strikes and walkouts. Putting up with bullshit is why America is going down the tubes. If you believe yourself defeated or are too cowardly to confront the powers that keep you down, including your own, then surely nothing will get better.

I think what the author was trying to do was show people why their kids are better off not being in the public schools.

(07-29-2016 04:04 AM)the Analogist Wrote: Parents who send their kids to such schools are to blame. Unless homeschooling is outlawed, complaining about schools is not valid. Raise your own kids. If you dont have time because you have to work two or three jobs to make ends meat, organize your coworkers and strike for fair wages. Students can organize civil rebellion in the way of strikes and walkouts. Putting up with bullshit is why America is going down the tubes. If you believe yourself defeated or are too cowardly to confront the powers that keep you down, including your own, then surely nothing will get better.

I wonder if we can revive the site to the point where organizing a large scale student protest would be feasible.

We're in a time where political extremism is peaking - or already has peaked. I'm afraid in 2 years we'll enter another "cooling" political climate which makes an anti-school revolution much less feasible.

(07-29-2016 04:04 AM)the Analogist Wrote: Parents who send their kids to such schools are to blame. Unless homeschooling is outlawed, complaining about schools is not valid. Raise your own kids. If you dont have time because you have to work two or three jobs to make ends meat, organize your coworkers and strike for fair wages. Students can organize civil rebellion in the way of strikes and walkouts. Putting up with bullshit is why America is going down the tubes. If you believe yourself defeated or are too cowardly to confront the powers that keep you down, including your own, then surely nothing will get better.

But what about when homeschooling isn't outlawed, but it's not available? Because some families don't have the time, resources, or credentials needed.

(08-11-2016 08:38 AM)Hansgrohe Wrote:

(07-29-2016 04:04 AM)the Analogist Wrote: Parents who send their kids to such schools are to blame. Unless homeschooling is outlawed, complaining about schools is not valid. Raise your own kids. If you dont have time because you have to work two or three jobs to make ends meat, organize your coworkers and strike for fair wages. Students can organize civil rebellion in the way of strikes and walkouts. Putting up with bullshit is why America is going down the tubes. If you believe yourself defeated or are too cowardly to confront the powers that keep you down, including your own, then surely nothing will get better.

I wonder if we can revive the site to the point where organizing a large scale student protest would be feasible.

We're in a time where political extremism is peaking - or already has peaked. I'm afraid in 2 years we'll enter another "cooling" political climate which makes an anti-school revolution much less feasible.

Actually, a political cooldown might make it more feasible, as it would be less likely to be overshadowed by the hot arguments.

(07-29-2016 04:04 AM)the Analogist Wrote: Parents who send their kids to such schools are to blame. Unless homeschooling is outlawed, complaining about schools is not valid. Raise your own kids. If you dont have time because you have to work two or three jobs to make ends meat, organize your coworkers and strike for fair wages. Students can organize civil rebellion in the way of strikes and walkouts. Putting up with bullshit is why America is going down the tubes. If you believe yourself defeated or are too cowardly to confront the powers that keep you down, including your own, then surely nothing will get better.

I wonder if we can revive the site to the point where organizing a large scale student protest would be feasible.

We're in a time where political extremism is peaking - or already has peaked. I'm afraid in 2 years we'll enter another "cooling" political climate which makes an anti-school revolution much less feasible.

Actually, a political cooldown might make it more feasible, as it would be less likely to be overshadowed by the hot arguments.

Let's take a look at history for a second.

In 1968, one of the most successful anti-school protests were organized in Los Angeles, California. In East Los Angeles, Mexican-American students, in unison, walked out of class, in order to protest a number of issues, including the prohibition of the Spanish language, low emphasis on the students' culture, censorship, and derelict school conditions. The walkouts significantly effected the way high schools functioned in the United States, but sadly fell short of the pipe dream student revolution.

Remember that the 1960s were a very tumultuous time in the United States. The civil rights movement, hippies, anti-Vietnam War protests, etc made for a very hot political climate. It was the perfect time to do such a thing.

Look in 2016; anti-establishment politics resulted in the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. I think that a student walkout would generate much more buzz than it would have in 2012 (things were very cool in 2012). Despite this, I expect things to cool off; Daesh will likely weaken, and if the British economy collapses, then the far right movements will die off in Europe (where they've been gaining ground seemingly from Ireland to Poland, from Spain to Norway).

I say we should take a "build slow" network on here; we'll know the time when to execute a powerplay.

You dont need much time or credentials to raise kids properly. The purpose of my TCS is also to guide parents towards the same end we want kids directes towards. 30 committed minutes a week is not so difficult, so long as you've got a clear idea about what those 30 minutes are about

Purity is to Believe only that which deserves it.Wisdom is to follow only the Opinion which makes the best use of evidence.Excellence is to be mindful of all these things in Living.Follow me on Twitter!

(07-29-2016 04:04 AM)the Analogist Wrote: Parents who send their kids to such schools are to blame. Unless homeschooling is outlawed, complaining about schools is not valid. Raise your own kids. If you dont have time because you have to work two or three jobs to make ends meat, organize your coworkers and strike for fair wages. Students can organize civil rebellion in the way of strikes and walkouts. Putting up with bullshit is why America is going down the tubes. If you believe yourself defeated or are too cowardly to confront the powers that keep you down, including your own, then surely nothing will get better.

I wonder if we can revive the site to the point where organizing a large scale student protest would be feasible.

We're in a time where political extremism is peaking - or already has peaked. I'm afraid in 2 years we'll enter another "cooling" political climate which makes an anti-school revolution much less feasible.

Actually, a political cooldown might make it more feasible, as it would be less likely to be overshadowed by the hot arguments.

Let's take a look at history for a second.

In 1968, one of the most successful anti-school protests were organized in Los Angeles, California. In East Los Angeles, Mexican-American students, in unison, walked out of class, in order to protest a number of issues, including the prohibition of the Spanish language, low emphasis on the students' culture, censorship, and derelict school conditions. The walkouts significantly effected the way high schools functioned in the United States, but sadly fell short of the pipe dream student revolution.

Remember that the 1960s were a very tumultuous time in the United States. The civil rights movement, hippies, anti-Vietnam War protests, etc made for a very hot political climate. It was the perfect time to do such a thing.

Look in 2016; anti-establishment politics resulted in the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. I think that a student walkout would generate much more buzz than it would have in 2012 (things were very cool in 2012). Despite this, I expect things to cool off; Daesh will likely weaken, and if the British economy collapses, then the far right movements will die off in Europe (where they've been gaining ground seemingly from Ireland to Poland, from Spain to Norway).

I say we should take a "build slow" network on here; we'll know the time when to execute a powerplay.

It's difficult to know. If the British economy still manages to do well, then the far right movements might actually be strengthened.

My TCS is ultimatley a spiritual path which if taken by enough people, would in a few generations simply find class sizes shrinking as more parents figure out how to effectively teach their kids without school.

Purity is to Believe only that which deserves it.Wisdom is to follow only the Opinion which makes the best use of evidence.Excellence is to be mindful of all these things in Living.Follow me on Twitter!